The Best Songs of 2014

The albums post gave away plenty of what's coming here, but that's not going to stop me from doing my twentieth annual top ten songs list. In that spirit, let's flash back and show you what my number one song was way back in 1995:

Yes, Blues Traveler fended off challenges from such luminaries as Sponge, Bush, and Silverchair to take the title. Not that this is dated or anything. Since the days of that homemade mixtape, everyone from Jewel to Local H has had their year at the top of my list. Now it's time for The Wonder Years to pass the crown to 2014's champion. Here we go.

10. Counting Crows- John Appleseed's Lament

"Come on Adam, tell me, what the hell is wrong with you?" is probably something Adam Duritz has heard a lot in his life. When he echoes those words from a significant other in this song, it's just part of a self-portrait of a crazy guy who isn't entirely unhappy with being crazy. Ain't no matter where you find the circus. The circus is everywhere.

9. Sons of Bill- Bad Dancer

For me, "Bad Dancer" was the main bright spot on the new album from Virginian band of brothers Sons of Bill. This one track provides 100% of the rock on an otherwise super-mellow country album, but I'm just happy there was one song that reminded me of their unbelievably perfect record, "Sirens", from 2012.

8. Against Me!- Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ

Everything about "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" is ambitious and explicit. This comparison of the treatment of trans folk to the treatment of war criminals ("You're gonna hang like Benito from the Esso rafters") is a standout among standouts. I don't think I totally got it until I was right in front of the stage as Laura sang it at the Aragon Ballroom this year, and then something clicked for me. The emotions and statements this album makes are not fun or easy to process, but I can't stop thinking that they're important. All that aside, it just rocks harder than almost anything I heard this year.

7. The Dollyrots- Love Ya, Love Ya, Love Ya

In some worlds, both the last song and this one are considered punk, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. This is bassist/singer Kelly Ogden and guitarist/singer Luis Cabezas at their shiniest and happiest. The video contains lethal levels of cute, as well as some random attempts to show their edge. It just makes them even more adorable.

6. Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers- Ain't Got the Words

Clever yet honest lyrics? Check. Roger singing like he means it? Check. Solid rock and roll, RCPM style? That's a big check. With the only really special track from "The Independent", one-time "Dave's song of the year" winner Roger Clyne lands in the top ten yet again.

5. The Gaslight Anthem- Dark Places

The Gaslight Anthem is just the latest in a long line of bands that resonate completely with me. The easiest way for a band to impress me is for the singer to sincerely bare his or her soul in song form, and "Dark Places" does exactly that, just as "The Backseat", "The Patient Ferris Wheel", and "Great Expectations" did last year when I became obsessed with their old album "The '59 Sound". 2014's "Get Hurt" delivered more than a few songs that measure up to that standard as singer/songwriter Brian Fallon continues his life's mission of putting too much blood on the page.

4. Against Me!- Black Me Out

As I said in yesterday's post, "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" is essentially an album about pain. Its stunning final track, "Black Me Out" takes all the pain, sorts it out, and puts it where it belongs. The pain of growth, of positive change? Keep it, it's powerful. The pain of decay, brought on by outside sources? It's useless. Let it out and let it be. As an autobiographical piece, this is Laura Jane Grace acknowledging that she's at the center of her own personal maelstrom, but at least she's still standing. As a statement for the fictional pseudo-character of the album, as well as all the amazing people who have died young, are dying young, and will die young because they had the bad luck of being born in the wrong body? It's a eulogy.

3. Local H- Team (Lorde cover)

I've heard Scott Lucas cover dozens of songs in my life. Good ones, bad ones, it doesn't matter. Coming out of him and his drummer, or just him with an acoustic guitar, they all sound incredible. This song is the reason I had to include the word "Almost" in my entry for #8 this year. This song melts faces, takes names, then gives those names to other people. Whose faces it then melts. For much of the year, I had this one holding the top spot. My current working theory is that Scott's from the future, wrote "Team", then gave it to Lourde so he could cover it. Think about it. Who has more right to say "I'm kinda over getting told to throw my hands up in the air": a 44 year old kinda-famous rocker from Zion, IL, or a precocious 18 year old from New Zealand (Or possibly Randy Marsh)? Yeah. I thought so.

2. The Gaslight Anthem- Mama's Boys

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but every now and then I'm just the victim of really bad timing. In April, I decided to give up binge drinking. I swore off liquor, stopped keeping beer in the house, and started drinking only when I went out, usually at concerts. So what happens in August? That's right, the greatest cry-in-your-beer song of all time is released as a bonus track on the new Gaslight Anthem album. And I'm never drunk enough to fully appreciate it. Like "Team", this is another one that held the top spot on this list, basically from its release on August 19th through to today. But it's not the winner. It can't be. Not this year.

1. Against Me!- Paralytic States

We wrap up 2014 in music with the penultimate track of Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the part of the story right before "Black Me Out", the part that puts us in the shoes of that transsexual prostitute on New Year's Eve as she loses her battle with gender dysphoria in a cheap motel room. The song is bone-chillingly terrifying to me, especially the verse that begins "Nighttime at the hotel...". I've listened to this song and every other song on TDB probably a hundred or more times this year, but "Paralytic States" never gets any easier to listen to, never loses any of its impact. I don't think it ever will. Typing those last two sentences convinced me that, with apologies to Local H and The Gaslight Anthem, this was my number one song of the year from the first listen. Nothing else ever really stood a chance.

The Albums I Listened To In 2014

It's that time of year again- everyone's got a favorite something of the year, and mine is always music. I'm going to do an albums post today with a top ten songs post (with some bonus songs) soon to follow. I'll be brief and try to avoid words like "soundscapes" and "post-romantic" so as to not want to punch myself in the mouth. And finally, nothing is more subjective than this. I'm embracing that and telling you how I feel about these albums instead of what they sound like. We all have YouTube, after all. 2013 had a handful of good albums and a few great songs, my favorite in both cases coming from The Wonder Years. 2014, everything was kicked up a notch. A big crop of very good albums and one great one, and I still have 2015 to look forward to, with new albums from Idlewild, Local H, Veruca Salt, and Sleater-Kinney. For now, two bands I've just recently fallen for provided more than enough awesome for one year, and they were supported- sometimes ably, sometimes not so much- by a bunch of old favorites.

I. The "Oh, that's too bad" Division

17. Beck- Morning Phase. The goodness of Modern Guilt, Beck's previous album, only serves to make this one more disappointing. Was anyone crying out for 12 versions of the same mopey, sleepy song from a guy who was at one time a genre-hopping avatar of funk?

16. Thom Yorke- Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. I forgot this album existed for long stretches of time. I'm still not sure if Thom Yorke is good at music or not. What I am sure of is that he's gonna milk that Kid A cow until long after we're all dead.

15. Smashing Pumpkins- Monuments to an Elegy. The howling, manic Pumpkins of the mid-90's are no more, and "Monuments" is every bit as tepid and forgettable as 2012's "Oceania". If I graded on a curve this would be dead last, because getting a Pumpkins album without anything remotely aggressive and challenging is worse than getting no Pumpkins album at all.

14. Sons of Bill- Love and Logic. If I could forget that this is the same band that made 2012's "Sirens", maybe I'd be able to enjoy "Love and Logic" for what it is. I can't do that, though. It's not a total miss for me, but I don't like monotonous, sleepy albums and the changes of pace are too infrequent.

II: The "Meets most expectations but exceeds none" Division

13. Jack White- Lazaretto. If Jack puts away the extraneous instruments, weans himself off his vaguely old-timey affectations, and goes back to garage rock, I'll take him back. But referencing White Stripes songs does not a White Stripes album make.

12. Bush- Man on the Run. Bush put out an album in 2014. I listened to it. Maybe even more than once. It's far better than I would have thought a new Bush album would be. Also, The Meat Puppets, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney put out albums in 2013, so just like in 1995, Bush is late to the grunge party.

11. Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers- The Independent. Apart from the sneering "grown-up Banditos" vibe of the first track, "The Independent" is about as bland and generic as RCPM has ever been. It doesn't even have Roger's trademark borderlands flair, opting instead for predictable mid-range rock with a little bit of country thrown in. It's not fun for me to type this, but it's what I hear.

10. Rancid- Honor is All We Know. This was my most anticipated album of 2014. I really wanted to love it, but it feels a little thrown together, a little like Tim Armstrong wrote the entire album in the same amount of time it takes to listen to it. It's been 11 years since the last Rancid album that sounded inspired and fully committed, which is a bummer. But hey, we'll always have ...And Out Come the Wolves.

9. Mike Doughty- Stellar Motel. Mike Doughty has developed a habit of releasing his albums at their most half-finished. Stellar Motel is equal parts shiny alternapop and baffling, why-was-I-born-with-ears rap. I don't understand Mike Doughty at all, but I don't really care. As long as there's a few gems mixed in with the one man inside jokes, I'm still on board.

III: The "Pleasantly surprising" Division

8. Lagwagon- Hang. In the nine years since the last Lagwagon LP, Joey Cape has apparently crossed over to the dark side and embraced his metalness. Normally I'd grit my teeth and complain about the general lack of punk on "Hang", but there's just something about Cape and gallows humor that works for me. Plus, come on, first full-length Lagwagon in nine years. It could be an exploration of the medium of farts on snare drums and I'd still find a way to defend it. Instead, I get to tell you to listen to "Reign" or "Burning Out In Style", the punkest songs on this metal-ish record, and just rock out.

7. U2- Songs of Innocence. Nobody else seems to have anything nice to say about this, so I'll say something nice. Hey Bono, thanks for giving me free music instead of making me steal it off the internet. Also, you know what, the music you gave away was pretty good. "This Is Where You Can Reach Me" might even be great. "The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)" and its iTunes commercial might have become grating after the third viewing, but the song in its entirety definitely doesn't suck. But again, even if it did suck, it was free and I could just delete it if I wanted to. So no complaints here about getting more than I paid for.

6. Weezer- Everything Will Be Alright in the End. The theme of this album is "It's fun to be in Weezer making rock music.", and that's fun to listen to. Conscious of its time and place, "Rockin' out like it's '94", delivering Eulogies For Rock Bands, ten tracks of Weezer sounding like Weezer and a brief three-track coda make this album easy to get into and just as easy to put down.

5. Foo Fighters- Sonic Highways. The more I listen to it, the more I think this might be the band's best album to date. It sounds just like every other Foo Fighters album, except there's a commitment and an urgency to each and every song that's impossible to ignore. This is a good rock band trying to make a great album, and they came pretty close. I just wish there was more of it.

IV: The "Oh god yes" Division

4. The Dollyrots- Barefoot and Pregnant

I describe the Dollyrots as "What would happen if Barbie came to life and started a power-pop band". Usually the combination of overly familiar riffs and Kelly Ogden's baby-talk vocals make it so I can't listen to them all the time, but "Barefoot and Pregnant" sees them at the top of their game. Better hooks, better lyrics, great bonus tracks, same sparkly adorableness. I've yet to get sick of it. There's no depth, pain, or catharsis here. Nothing to take seriously or think about very much. Just a pretty pink bubble you can float around in for a while.

3. The Gaslight Anthem- Get Hurt

What I love about Gaslight Anthem is the blood in their music. Singer/lyricist Brian Fallon writes and sings from the heart, and that always comes through. "Get Hurt" isn't the most consistent album, but the lows are no worse than average and the highs are the kind of lyrics that help you make sense of the least sensible parts of life. And you know every line throughout was something he had to open a vein to write.

2. Counting Crows- Somewhere Under Wonderland

Speaking of blood in the music, I've been a sucker for Adam Duritz's charmingly unstable lyrics since I was about twelve, but "Somewhere Under Wonderland" is completely unhinged. He counts in one song with "One. Two. One, two, buckle, dang." He stumbles over rhythms because what he wants to say is just a beat or two too long, and none of it makes a lick of sense. In "Dislocation" he openly rocks out his issues with Dissociative Disorder and even Borderlines like me can totally get it when he says "I don't remember me." It's like having a 40-minute conversation with the nicest, saddest, off-his-medsest homeless man you could ever meet. And even though you find yourself laughing at the most ridiculous parts, you still come away from it knowing the depth of honesty that's always been Duritz's money maker is still there. It might not be as simple as storming through the barrio with Mr. Jones anymore, but hell if he doesn't still mean every word.

1. Against Me!- Transgender Dysphoria Blues

 Punk rock, at its heart, is about alienation. Gender Dysphoria is in large part about the same thing- but instead of being alienated from society, your government, your family and friends, or your significant other, you're alienated from your own body. That takes all those other alienations and grows them exponentially. The result of making a punk record on the subject is, in a word, devastating. Laura Jane Grace, the trans woman who fronts the band, does what every great concept album writer does: she uses the real emotions of her real life when telling a semi-autobiographical story. A bottom-rung-of-society transsexual prostitute instead of Laura herself just makes for a more compelling main character, and it's nothing if not compelling. The record seethes and boils with pain, profoundly sad lyrics like "Making yourself up as you go along/ who's gonna take you home tonight?" and "What's the best that you can hope for?/ pity fucks and table scraps" assaulting you into empathy, dropped like bombs in a scorched earth campaign, so constantly and thoroughly you'd think they were throwaway punk rock lines until you pay attention to each one and realize that Grace isn't trying to sell rage to us consumers, she's just trying to let it out. There have been three times in my life when I let a rock album change me as a person. When I was 15, sad, and stupid, I thought Third Eye Blind's debut was the most incredible thing ever, even though- or maybe because- it was just emotional egomania. When I was 23, sad, and stupid, I discovered Alkaline Trio's "From Here to Infirmary" and let it become the soundtrack to years of self-destruction because going down in flames was something to celebrate. I was about to turn 32 when I got Transgender Dysphoria Blues. I was still stupid, and I still am, but just like with the previous two, I feel like I understand my stupidity just a little bit better now and I'm not that sad anymore. We don't learn until it hurts not to learn. TDB makes it hurt. I want everybody on the planet to hear this record.

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 6

The winter meetings are behind us, but crazy stuff keeps happening. Baseball is awesome with Rick Hahn, A.J. Preller, and Billy Beane running the show. But it was fun with Kevin Towers too, and Jack Z and Ruben Amaro are always interesting. Screw it, I just like baseball. In fact, in between Winning the Winter posts I'm going to do Hall of Fame voting again. If you hate Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, get ready for me to say mean things to you. Until then, here's some more stuff that happened.

12/13/14: Twins sign RHP Ervin Santana, 4 years, $55M. The Twins' offense has already arrived, but with their best pitching prospects either floundering or years away, Terry Ryan is doubling down on "sign average free agent starters and hope for the best". While last year's Ricky Nolasco signing is a disaster so far, Ryan did pick a winner in Phil Hughes. I don't think Santana's going to completely collapse, as he at least has some AL adequacy on his resume, but he wasn't much better than average at his peak and he's entering the typical decline years. Santana's the winner because damn that's a lot of money for a number 4 starter. I think the Twins slipped into the title of "least interesting team in baseball" this month, and if Buxton, Sano, and company bust, they might stay there for a while.

12/15/14: Yankees re-sign 3B Chase Headley, 4 years, $52M. Setting aside his fluky MVP-caliber 2012 season, Headley's still been an above-average hitter who plays third base as well as anyone in the league. And with another year separating him from the injuries that marred his 2013, there's a chance- not a huge one, but more than zero- that he's got another ridiculous offensive season in him. At worst, nobody has to worry about Alex Rodriguez playing third base anymore, which is something the Yankees wanted to avoid. They got a good player here, and they didn't even overpay.

12/15/14: Astros sign SS Jed Lowrie, 3 years, $23M. So they haven't signed Scherzer- yet- but Jeff Luhnow did find a position player willing to take Jim Crane's money. Lowrie had a solid half-season in Houston in 2012 in between the injuries, so there's some familiarity there- both with the player, and his frequent visits to the DL. As aberrant as broken fingers and neck strains might look, the biggest predictor of future injuries is past injuries, and Lowrie's got quite a collection. That explains the relatively low annual value on the contract. The past two seasons in Oakland, though, they were pretty good: a well-above-average bat for a shortstop, defense that was playable if not gold glove-worthy, and just one short DL stint. You know what, I talked myself into it. If Lowrie's done putting his fingers places where they get broken, the Astros got themselves a player. They aren't good yet, but they're getting less jokey.

12/16/14: Rays trade OF Matt Joyce to Angels for RHP Kevin Jepsen. Joyce slots into the Angels' corner outfield/DH rotation with Josh Hamilton, C.J. Cron and Kole Calhoun, and whatever power they lose by benching Cron or Calhoun, they make up for in Joyce's reasonably impressive on-base ability. That adds some balance-if not value- to the Angels' otherwise hackerish lineup. The back end of the Rays' bullpen still looked like an area of strength to me, but I guess they wanted one more closer-quality arm in case Jake McGee is out for a while. Right now, they're looking at Stephen Souza, Kevin Kiermaier, and David Dejesus for their own corner outfield/DH slots. I'd rather keep Joyce than run that out there, but maybe I'm underestimating the younger guys, or maybe there's another move coming. Along those lines, this looked a lot better for Tampa Bay before their most recent blockbuster. For now, win to the Angels.

12/16/14: Dodgers sign RHP Brandon McCarthy, 4 years, $48M. I liked reading Dodgers bossman Andrew Friedman's comments on this contract and the Brett Anderson deal. To briefly restate: If there's a guy with an injury history who you think has turned a corner, you'd rather sign him than a guy with a clean health history but recent warning signs. But McCarthy just hasn't been that good, healthy or not. $12M a year is probably about right, but if the choices were McCarthy at this price or Francisco Liriano at his price of 3/$39M, I would take Liriano. And I would take Jason Hammel at 2/$20M over either one. Maybe that half season in New York was the real Brandon McCarthy, in which case the Dodgers just picked the perfect guy to fill out their rotation. But if you're the Dodgers and money isn't a limiting factor, why wouldn't you just give James Shields too many years and too much money?

12/16/14: Royals sign DH Kendrys Morales, 2 years, $17M. Okay, so this is one of those deals that everyone is sure won't work. I'm not. Here's the problems with Morales: he's had a few serious injuries in his career, he sat out the first two months of the 2014 season due to a qualifying offer he should have just accepted and never got things going, and his K/BB ratio is not where you want a middle of the order slugger to be. Here's the good stuff: when he's healthy, he hits for both pretty good average and pretty good power. Um, isn't that exactly what the Royals (and every other team) need out of their DH? I mean, they still could have exercised Billy Butler's option and either kept him or gotten something of value for him. This doesn't negate that. But I don't think it makes another magical run in 2015 any less likely than it was before they signed Morales. I think I have to give the win to the Royals here. *is surprised*

12/16/14: Indians sign RHP Gavin Floyd, 1 year, $4M plus incentives. When the Braves gave Floyd basically this same deal a year ago, I said it would probably work out fine, because Gavin Floyd gave the best years of his career to the White Sox and that makes him great forever in this space. Sadly, he only managed nine starts for Atlanta before going under the knife thanks to a fractured elbow, and now he has to go the incentive-based single year route again. If he's healthy, he's a perfectly adequate number 4 with deep AL Central roots. If not, Cleveland can scrape together a back of the rotation from the likes of Zach McAllister and Josh Tomlin. What I'm rooting for is Floyd good, Indians bad, June trade out of the AL Central to a team I can get behind. What I'm predicting is an occasionally injured, often mediocre season from Floyd.

12/16/14: White Sox sign OF Melky Cabrera, 3 years, $42M. Yet again, the White Sox needed a specific player and got him. First it was a left-handed 1B/DH. Then a bullpen tandem. Then a righthanded number 2 starting pitcher. This time, they needed a productive number 2 hitter, preferably an outfielder. Melky Cabrera is exactly that guy, nothing more, nothing less. Rick Hahn makes GMing look easy, and he makes commentary pointless. When he took over from Kenny Williams, he said "Huh. We have no prospects. *gets prospects*" This winter, he's been all "So any team that tries to win can win? Cool! *tries to win*" Maybe Cabrera's not a defensive asset, and maybe he'll just be OK and not electric at the plate. Nobody in Chicago will care because he's not Dayan Viciedo, and that's all we ever wanted. Not Dayan Viciedo. 

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 5

We're still waiting on a lot of the winter meetings insanity to get finalized, but there's plenty of significant stuff ready for overeager winner and loser declarations.

12/11/14: Marlins trade LHP Andrew Heaney, RHP Chris Hatcher, IF Kike Hernandez, and C prospect Austin Barnes to Dodgers for RHP Dan Haren, 2B Dee Gordon, IF Miguel Rojas, and approximately $12M. Wow. Just, wow. Dating back to last trade deadline, the Marlins have now traded away half of their top ten prospects from this time a year ago.Here Heaney, their top minor leaguer and #30 overall prospect in baseball, is shipped to the Dodgers along with extra value for a fast but weak-hitting second baseman and either a back-end starting pitcher or a wad of cash, depending on Haren's retirement decision. LA gets a quality bullpen arm, an infielder with some upside, a probable backup catcher, and a top prospect, all of them cheap and under long-term team control. While I think it's a moral imperative for Miami to back up the Stanton signing with major league additions, this is a tremendous cost for negligible value. Miami overrated Dee Gordon, when just playing Solano or Dietrich or Hernandez at second next year wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world if it meant they got to keep the guys they traded. They underrated Heaney, who possibly could have been a key piece in a deal for some corner infield power. If Haren decides to keep pitching, I'll concede that he's a nice stable veteran for a young and unpredictable rotation, but it wouldn't shock me if the deal was made for the $10M the Marlins can pocket if he chooses to retire. I'm getting the feeling that the Marlins are going to run out of trade bullets before a playoff team comes together, but Jeffrey Loria can already say he's done enough to throw his hands up and say "Well, we tried. Tear it down again." This is just the first of many Dodger dominoes to fall, but it's the big win that allowed everything else they did to fall into place.

12/11/14: Dodgers trade LHP Andrew Heaney to Angels for 2B Howie Kendrick. Here's domino #2. The Dodgers manage to turn Dee Gordon and Dan Haren into a year of Howie Kendrick plus the other three players they got from the Marlins. Pretty nice play from Andrew Friedman. It's so good that even though the Angels are the winners in this trade, the Dodgers still manage to come out ahead overall. Really though, strong move by Jerry DiPoto. With all their money tied up in Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson, and Mike Trout, the plan of accumulating high-upside pitching prospects to fill out the roster is one I like. It didn't work out great with Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago last year, but that doesn't mean that Heaney and Nick Tropeano (acquired from Houston) won't be good.

12/11/14: Marlins trade RHP Anthony Desclafani and C Chad Wallach to Reds for RHP Mat Latos. Latos is a rental, which is the only downside to acquiring a 27-year-old starting pitcher who is a 4-win player when healthy. Desclafani is the latest of Miami's top prospects to be traded. His 2014 major league debut was superficially ugly, but looking at his numbers for half a second reveals that his cluster luck was incredibly poor. When you allow 45 baserunners and 23 of them score, that's really not all your fault, as evidenced by a FIP under 4. I think Miami overpaid here, too, but not as drastically as in the Dodgers trade. At least Latos will make a noticeable impact on the 2015 Marlins. Slight edge to the Reds, but it's the cost of doing business if you want to add wins to the major league team.

12/11/14: White Sox trade RHP Andre Rienzo to Marlins for LHP Dan Jennings. Sox get a decent, cheap lefty reliever. Marlins get a guy who hasn't put it together in the majors yet, but had good K rates in the minors. Shrug. I'd rather have Jennings, but then I sat through a Rienzo start or two this year and I might be biased.

12/11/14: Tigers trade RHP Rick Porcello to Red Sox for OF Yoenis Cespedes, RHP Alex Wilson, and LHP Gabe Speier. Did you know Rick Porcello isn't even 26 years old yet? Amazing. That kind of makes me like this trade a bit more for the Red Sox. Their plan of collecting number 3 starters has been questioned, but this is one I can get behind. We know what Cespedes is, a swing-at-anything guy with decent pop who may or may not add value as a defensive left fielder, depending on who you ask and on what day. Alex Wilson is the kind of guy Detroit needs like five of, an inexpensive and useful relief pitcher in the prime of his career. Speier is a lottery ticket, but hey, his rookie ball numbers are nice. This one seems about fair, but I think Ben Cherington did a great job in getting a player as good as Porcello in alleviating his outfield logjam. I also probably wouldn't have traded Porcello if I were Dave Dombrowski, even though they really did need another outfielder. Maybe Max Scherzer or James Shields will wind up signing with the Tigers, in which case nevermind, but for now, the next trade in this post is Dombrowski's follow-up. I'm not whelmed.

12/11/14: Reds trade RHP Alfredo Simon to Tigers for IF Eugenio Suarez and RHP prospect Jonathon Crawford. The previous trade opened a rotation spot in Detroit, and they filled it with... Well, let's not overstate things. Simon is going to turn 34 early next season, he's a rental, and his peripherals suggest his 3.44 ERA in 2014 gives him a little too much credit. It was also his first full season as a starting pitcher. So I'm not sure the Tigers got anything at all. In exchange, the Reds picked up a 23 year old shortstop with good range and minor league numbers that suggest he could be a good hitter, plus the Tigers' first round draft pick from 2013. So yeah. The Reds are doing well this winter.

12/12/14: Nationals trade RHP Ross Detwiler to Rangers for 2B Chris Bostick and RHP Abel De Los Santos. Detwiler is probably a good 4 or mediocre 3, but with his entire career spent in Washington so far, it's fair to wonder if a move to Arlington is going to work out for him. Either way, there wasn't space for him in the Nats' rotation next year. Bostick and De Los Santos are both A-ball maybe prospects. A fine trade for Washington, and an underwhelming start to Texas's journey back to contention.

12/12/14: Cardinals sign 1B Mark Reynolds, 1 year, $2M. If Matt Adams needs a platoon partner, well, he's got one. If not, the Cardinals have a right-handed Adam Dunn on their bench. No losers here.

12/12/14: Pirates re-sign LHP Francisco Liriano, 3 years, $39M. There's a pretty wide variance in how this could turn out, and it's more risk than we usually see Pittsburgh take on. Sure, Liriano's had the best two years of his career in black and gold, but it isn't that weird for a pitcher to be at his best at age 29-30. If the Pirates have a weakness it's starting pitching, both on the high end and in depth, and Liriano could conceivably help with both. He could also get hurt or lose control of the strike zone, both of which he's higher risk for than most other free agent starters. The Pirates signed Liriano to a low-cost two year deal before 2013, and that worked out great. I think the Pirates lose here by virtue of not quitting when they're ahead.

 12/12/14: Astros sign RHP Luke Gregerson, 3 years, $18.5M and RHP Pat Neshek, 2 years, $12.5M. I read that Jeff Luhnow's theory is that young starting pitchers fail to develop when their bullpen blows leads all the time. I also remember how a good number of GMs get fired for signing relief pitchers when the rest of their team sucks. No matter the theory behind it, this is a waste. All it is is a team that's doubled down on the prospect plan so many times they don't want to part with any of their precious minor leaguers, and no real significant free agent wants to sign up for whatever's happening in Houston. So they throw deals at relievers because nobody else will take their money. Neshek and Gregerson would both be winners, except I bet they could have each scored similar contracts with teams that might be good in 2015. So the winner is Dallas Keuchel's feelings, because now he'll finish 14-9 instead of 12-9. And if the Astros wind up signing Max Scherzer, well, I've already established I'm an idiot.

12/12/14: Cubs sign RHP Jason Hammel, 2 years, $20M. Hey, another year or two like his first Cubs stint, and this guy's gonna be average for his career! Actually, I like this just fine for the Cubs. We knew they were going to go after an ace and a mid-level starter this winter. They got a great deal on the mid-level starter and they did sign someone people think is an ace. They're still an arm or two short if they're serious about playing important games in 2015, but signing Hammel to this contract is quite a bit better than signing Liriano, or McCarthy, or any other mid-rotation guy to the deals they got or will get. It just looks odd to me because most free agents pick the biggest dollar amount, and I think Hammel really, genuinely, wanted to be a Cub more than he wanted another year and $10M on his contract.

12/12/14: Red Sox sign RHP Justin Masterson, 1 year, $9.5M. Another number 3 starter heads to Boston. So 3 of Masterson's past 5 years would make this contract a bargain, and the other two would get him waived. I don't even know what to do with this and I wonder what Ben Cherington knows that I don't. The whole "overload on bats, get innings-eaters" plan might be good enough to get Boston back to the playoffs, but nothing they've done so far makes me think that's happening. This is a somewhat educated guess and nothing more, but I don't think this one works on an individual player level or a team level. At least put a team option on there so if it works out there's some continuity.

12/12/14: Diamondbacks trade LHP Wade Miley to Red Sox for RHP Rubby De La Rosa, RHP Allen Webster, and IF Raymel Flores. OK, first of all, Wade Miley's profile picture on baseball-reference makes me way more optimistic on him than I should be. What a man that is. I feel better about everything just looking at that goofy grin. What's that? Congress's budget deal virtually ensures a repeat of the economic collapse, and for once republicans and democrats are equally to blame? Don't care. Wade Miley will show us the way. As a pitcher, he's- surprise- just below average. Or he was, in the NL. In Boston, he's probably garbage. De La Rosa and Webster were the pitchers the Dodgers sent to Boston in the Adrian Gonzalez/Carl Crawford/Josh Beckett franchise reset trade of late 2012, and failed to make an impact in the majors with Boston. Webster, though, was actually quite good at triple-A in 2013 and 2014. De La Rosa was less consistent, but it's not impossible that both of them wind up in the Diamondbacks rotation at some point in the next year. Flores is a 20-year-old middle infielder, so who knows. This is an interesting one. I feel like Dave Stewart might have picked Boston's pocket and exploited their lack of major league pitching depth in a way Dave Dombrowski failed to do.

Wow, lot of action. And some of the biggest ones haven't even been finalized yet. Hell yeah winter meetings.

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 4

Wherein we cover the action of the first half of the winter meetings.

12/8/14: Athletics trade 1B/OF Brandon Moss to Indians for IF prospect Joey Wendle. Moss is yet another player who revived his career in Oakland after multiple other teams cut bait on him. He rewarded the A's with 76 homers and 4.8 WAR over three inexpensive seasons, but the WAR figure is not really a good indicator because it's pretty clear Moss is a DH and his value's been compromised by being forced to play in the field. He might face the same obstacle in Cleveland, where he, Nick Swisher, and Carlos Santana all have a good case for being the everyday DH. On the Oakland side, Moss is far from irreplaceable, but this is part of a series of Billy Beane moves that don't make sense yet. Joey Wendle could conceivably be part of the solution to the A's lack of middle infielders, and it's always good when you can get a player whose at-bat music picks itself, but he's hardly a reason by himself to further weaken the major league team. I don't get it for either team. I mean, Cleveland really doesn't need Moss, they're a budget conscious team, and his power numbers mean he's probably going to be paid pretty well in arbitration. So I guess Oakland wins because they save some money.

12/8/14: Diamondbacks sign OF Yasmany Tomas, 6 years, $68.5M. As I said last year with Jose Abreu, we're kidding ourselves if we think we can predict what Cuban pro players are going to do in the majors. Aroldis Chapman and Abreu came over and dominated immediately, Yoenis Cespedes is a useful but flawed player, and there have been more than a few busts. I looked at Abreu's Serie Nacional numbers a year ago and they made my head explode. Tomas's stats are respectable, but he'll have to fully repeat them in Arizona to be a star player. Another concern is that the Diamondbacks want to give him the third base job, and he is a large man. They do have some advanced third base prospects in the minors, so if that doesn't pan out it doesn't ruin everything, but if I were Dave Stewart I would try to trade Mark Trumbo, assume Tomas is an outfielder, and go from there. Working in Tomas's favor is his age (24) and people's tendency to base predictions off of the most recent data they arbitrarily decide is relevant- in this case, Abreu's monster rookie season. Maybe Tomas is another stud, and even if he isn't, $11M isn't totally unreasonable for the prime years of a decent player. Taking away the positional nonsense, I like the signing for that reason: Arizona isn't paying for the best possible version of Tomas, they're paying for what he's most likely to be.

12/9/14: Athletics trade RHPs Jeff Samardzija and Michael Ynoa to White Sox for IF Marcus Semien, C Josh Phegley, RHP Chris Bassitt, and 1B Rangel Ravelo. Have you ever been in a fantasy league and gotten a trade offer that's clearly "All the guys I don't want for the one guy of yours I want"? That's the offer Billy Beane got for Samardzija, and he freaking took it. I'm still amused. The biggest name going back to Oakland is probably Semien, who does finally give them a usable middle infielder, but beyond that Bassitt is the only one who registers as a prospect, and that's only because the A's and White Sox both have miserable farm systems. The argument against this is that Beane got four controllable players for one, and that's fine, but I've seen Phegley and Semien. You can have them, Oakland. Ynoa, a 23-year-old reliever, is about as notable as any of the names going back to the A's, and Samardzija will give the Sox a strong top of the rotation when he joins Sale and Quintana. There's still work to be done on the Sox- I would really like to see an upgrade at second, third, and/or catcher- but the team's direction is clear, their moves make obvious sense in that context, and their division won't be particularly strong in 2015. I love everything about this trade.

12/9/14: Diamondbacks trade C Miguel Montero to Cubs for RHP prospects Jeferson Mejia and Zack Godley. This is a pure salary dump for Arizona. Montero is set to make $40M for the next 3 seasons, and is a player in decline at 31. Godley is a 24-year-old who hasn't yet made it to double-A, and Mejia is a 20-year-old reliever with some potential. MLBTR mentions the possibility of platooning Montero with Wellington Castillo, which sounds plausible. Of course, maybe Montero is just following the usual age curve for catchers and he'll be finished before his contract is. That's the risk, and I think it's a reasonable one to take. The Cubs have the money to spend and trading for an expensive catcher is one way of loudly proclaiming that the transition from building to contending is underway. It may or may not work out baseball-wise for the Cubs (seriously, 31-year-old catcher. Your guess is as good as mine.), but getting out from under Montero's contract is definitely good for Arizona. Even if it means they have to use a dude named Tuffy at catcher in 2015. Seriously. Tuffy Gosewisch. That is the name of a real person.

12/10/14: Phillies trade LHP Antonio Bastardo to Pirates for LHP prospect Joely Rodriguez. Pittsburgh gets a strong second lefty for their bullpen, and Philly gets a 23-year-old who hasn't shown any signs of prospectitude as of yet. I guess it's good to see Ruben Amaro get to work, but it's better to see the Pirates keep adding.

12/10/14: White Sox sign RHP David Robertson, 4 years, $46M. I'm kind of baseball hipsterish in that I see paying closers more than setup men as very 2004. You only have so much money to spend on incremental free agent upgrades, and the difference between the best relief pitcher and the worst is something like 4 wins, whereas the difference between an elite starting pitcher or position player and the worst is more like 8. More importantly, the difference between that $12M closer and that $4M middle reliever is maybe one win. That said, my remarks on the Samardzija trade stand here as well. The Sox weren't going to be competitive with the bullpen they had at the end of the 2014 season. Duke and Robertson are expensive fixes relative to their value, but together their additions probably mean the bullpen will be serviceable in 2015. And David Robertson is probably the best relief pitcher to hit free agency since Jonathan Papelbon, who got $4 more over the same term after the 2011 season. Are they overpaid? Obviously. Every free agent that gets a multiyear deal is overpaid because that's how the market works. Teams that offer reasonable contracts are eliminated in the first round of bidding. But at least the Sox overpaid for the exact player they needed.

12/10/14: Cubs sign LHP Jon Lester, 6 years, $155M. A chatter on ESPN.com asked a great question last week: "When did everyone decide Jon Lester is an ace?" Um, I don't know. Let's forget about the mystique and aura of everyone who helps Boston win a World Series or two, and just look at the player. He's about to turn 31. He was dominant in the regular season from 2008-11, then bad, then good, then very good in again 2014. He earned a reputation as a postseason stud by going 4-1 in the 2013 postseason, but bombed in the A's only 2014 postseason game, which was only one game so really I shouldn't bother mentioning it. The problem with knowing all this is people- apparently well paid, knowledgeable, powerful people in the baseball world- are paying for what he's already done and not what he will do. They know how Jon Lester spent his 20's, and now so do you. In those years, he had a handful of seasons that delivered something like $26M worth of value. Does anybody think he's going to be that good in his 30's? Maybe this is just the statement signing it was meant to be, when some hack realized  "Hey the Cubs are rebuilding and Jon Lester is a free agent in 2014 OMG THE CUBS SHOULD TOTALLY SIGN JON LESTER!!!!ONE" two years ago. Let's ignore that the Cubs could have gotten more value out of signing two mid-rotation guys than one Lester. Let's forget about developing your own starting pitching. Let's just nod appreciatively at Hoyer and Epstein cause they got their guy. Go Cubs go.

More things are happening as I write this, but I'll wait for some official announcements before I do another one of these.

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 3

Catching up to real-time in advance of next week's Baseball Christmas, aka the winter meetings...

11/28: Athletics trade 3B Josh Donaldson to Blue Jays for 3B Brett Lawrie and three prospects: LHP Sean Nolin, RHP Kendall Graveman, and SS Franklin Barreto. I joined every other baseball fan in completely losing my mind over this trade, but I've had about a week to collect myself and I think I'm good. Josh Donaldson is a fine player, one of the best third basemen around and utterly deserving of his top-10 MVP finishes the past two years. I don't want to downplay that. Toronto is a considerably better Major League team for doing this trade, and if there's any money left for pitching, they're looking like a potential 2015 powerhouse. Now let's talk about what else Donaldson is: about to turn 29 and get expensive, which is when the A's usually get rid of their really good players. Coming off two great years, he was never going to be as attractive a trade chip as he is right now, so he got cashed in. If they were going to deal Donaldson, it had to be a package like this. The haul isn't exciting in comparison to what Donaldson is- again, RIGHT NOW- but it's a ton of value. They got a much younger third baseman back in Lawrie, one with high offensive potential, albeit with less team control than the guy they gave up. They also got three minor leaguers, two of whom should be mid-to-back-end rotation guys by 2016, and one- Barreto- who has all the makings of elite prospectness. I'm not going to cop out with a win-win here, even though I not only see both teams' perspectives, I admire their respective visions. This is a trade the A's had to make for franchise health purposes, and it's a trade the Jays were lucky they got to make for winning the World Series purposes. I think that makes the Jays the winner. It also makes me wonder why the teams I care about didn't get involved. Donaldson would have looked great at the Cell Block or Jeffrey Loria's Empty Paradise next year.

11/28: Royals trade RHP Aaron Crow to Marlins for LHP Brian Flynn and RHP Reid Redman. Flynn and Redman are probably nothing. Crow is slightly older nothing. Win to the Royals, I guess? Honestly, I decided to put this one in the post before I looked at Crow's numbers. I thought he was significantly better than he is. Oh well. They can't all be Wheeler-for-Beltran.

12/1: Royals decline to tender a contract to LHP Francisley Bueno. This is a tremendous opportunity for the other 29 teams to have the Best Name in Baseball in their organization for 2015. Rest assured that I will be on top of this all winter. Don't let me down, other 29 baseball teams.

12/3: Blue Jays trade LHP J.A. Happ to Mariners for OF Michael Saunders. Both these guys are slightly below-average, with two years of team control remaining. MLBTR told me Happ added a couple MPH to his fastball in 2014, so that's something, but even then he wasn't particularly good and pitchers don't suddenly get better at age 32 anymore. Saunders took a big step forward in his age-27 season, admittedly in about half a season of plate appearances, but his platoon splits suggest he could be fine as an everyday outfielder. Both these teams have a glaring need for pitching, but I think Saunders delivers some value (while filling a clear need for the Jays) and Happ doesn't. Win for Toronto.

12/3: Twins sign OF Torii Hunter, 1 year, $10.5M. Both Hunter and the Twins were pretty great, back in the early 2000's. He can still hit a little, but a yard sign that says "Torii Hunter's Gold Glove Reputation" would play the outfield about as well as Torii himself would in 2015. If he's the regular DH, I kind of like this as a value play. I mean, are there any other productive hitters lining up to take 1-year deals to play for the Twins? But every inning he plays in the field knocks down that marginal value, and there's a chance this is the Jeter situation redux, where everyone says "I know he can't play defense anymore. Do you want to be the one to tell him?" and they suck up a few extra losses because nobody wants to spit on Superman's cape. As a White Sox fan who might get to watch Hawk Harrelson call some Torii Hunter defense next year, I think I'm the winner. There are no losers when Hawk is involved.

12/3: Royals sign RHP Luke Hochevar, 2 years, $10M. The former first-overall draft pick finally came into his own in 2013 with an excellent season in the bullpen, and then promptly snapped a ligament and missed 2014. With this signing, the Royals now have four closer-quality right handed relievers, and $22M committed to them next year. Beyond that, my concern is the $2M in incentives if Hochevar is used as a starter- aka, that thing he was terrible at before they moved him to the 'pen. I think this contract is a bit generous in the abstract, unnecessary in the immediate, and loaded with backfire potential- which is saying a lot for a middle reliever. It could also be fine if Dayton Moore can trade Greg Holland or Kelvin Herrera for a useful position player. Moore has every chance to get this one right, but even coming off a World Series appearance, I can't say I think he will.

12/3: Braves sign OF Nick Markakis, 4 years, $44M. We all assumed Markakis was going back to Baltimore, and I think that's because he's just not that interesting a player and putting more thought into it wasn't fun for anyone. He's a good but declining defensive right fielder. He draws walks but doesn't hit for much power or put up great batting averages. He's a guy who will play every day and won't make or break your team. He's worth the $11M salary, but most players like this don't warrant a 4-year commitment. Atlanta's a work in progress right now, as are all teams, but it seems like this has to be a precursor to an Upton or Gattis trade. Just as we have to factor this signing into the Heyward trade, whatever happens next is more interesting than this. John Hart and the Braves didn't lose or win here, but Markakis's presence will affect my judging of their future moves' winningness or lositude.

12/4: Mariners sign OF Nelson Cruz, 4 years, $57M. The Mariners needed homers, so they signed the best home run hitter of 2014. Sometimes this is easy. They'll be getting Cruz's mid to late 30's, which is not ideal, but other than Victor Martinez I'm not sure one could name a better free agent fit for Seattle. Their Cano/Felix window won't stay open forever, so good on Jack Z for making the addition.

12/5: Yankees sign LHP Andrew Miller, 4 years, $36M. You never want to be the team that gives out this kind of contract. It says your player development has failed so hard you don't even have usable bullpen arms to call up. It also says, in order to get the best available reliever, you have to give him multiple years and subject yourself to the vagaries of inconsistent health and performance synonymous with relief pitchers- which increase exponentially with every year on the deal. Miller might remain a shutdown bullpen guy for the entirety of the contract, but history suggests he'll turn into a pumpkin sooner or later. Also, I don't even get the point of doing this if you're the Yankees. The games Miller pitches in in 2015 will probably not be important ones, so why pay anyone big money to do it?

12/5: In a three-way trade, Yankees send RHP Shane Greene to Tigers, who send LHP Robbie Ray and IF Domingo Leyba to Diamondbacks, who send SS Didi Gregorius to Yankees. So now that Robbie Ray has been traded in consecutive winters for valuable players (Doug Fister last year, Shane Greene now) I decided to give Ray a second look. He'll pitch next year at 23 and has pitched well at every stop in the minors, always young for his league. His K/BB ratio took a hit last year in triple-A, but he's still a pretty good bet to be a major league starting pitcher. Throw in Leyba, a legit shortstop prospect who's a few years away, and that's value for the D-Backs. Shane Greene, the new Tiger, is already a controllable major league starting pitcher and that's exactly what they needed. And the Yankees got their new shortstop in Gregorius, a glove-first 24-year-old with four years of team control left. I like this trade the most for the Tigers, because they just completed their 2015 rotation and it's barely December. If the Yankees dive headfirst into the pitching market and sign everybody they can make up for the loss of Greene, but their rotation is in shambles at the moment. They have to be the loser here.

If previous years are any indication, starting tomorrow we're going to have a spike in trade and free agent activity. I'll be here for it as it happens.

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 2

And we're back for round 2 of a Hot Stove season that's already given us plenty of heat.

11/17: Braves trade OF Jason Heyward and RP Jordan Walden to the Cardinals for SP Shelby Miller and SP prospect Tyrell Jenkins. We've had some more mind-boggling transactions since this one took place, but in terms of present-day impact it's hard to top adding a player like Heyward. As if there's ever any doubt, the Cards are now primed to enter 2015 as division favorites yet again. That said, Atlanta did well to get Miller and Jenkins in exchange for one year of Heyward and two of Walden. I think people were too hasty in taking the shine off of Miller's star, and there's quite a good chance he turns into an affordable and productive player in Atlanta. Because of the massive gap in years of control and cost certainty, I prefer the Braves' end of the deal.

11/18: Blue Jays sign C Russell Martin, 5 years, $82M. This is basically Brian McCann money, and it's not hard to argue that Martin's worth it. He built a reputation as a great leader of his pitching staff in Pittsburgh while simultaneously posting a .402 OBP in 2014. Still, this is a contract that violates the first principle of free agency: pay for what the player will do, not for what he's already done. Toronto's pushing a lot of chips into the middle of the table in a sincere effort to win the winter, and I respect that. On the other hand, their similar efforts from two years ago have thus far failed to end the Jays' playoff drought. If 2015 is a magical ride through October that revitalizes baseball in Toronto, it's all worth it. If it's not, then this is just another obscene free agent deal given to an over-30 player. It's hard for me to see this any way other than a big win for Martin.

11/18: White Sox sign RP Zach Duke, 3 years, $15M. This is not my most favorite Rick Hahn move ever. There's not a lot in the track record or the peripherals to suggest that Duke is much better than your typical middle reliever, except for a completely bananas jump in strikeout rate in 2014. If that's for real, then maybe this is fine, and I do love the spirit of the whole "Trying to win" thing. As for the winner of this transaction, well, Duke and his agent kind of nailed this one. When you're somewhere around the middle of the ten best free agent relievers and you get a three-year guarantee, that's winning.

11/19: Athletics sign DH Billy Butler, 3 years, $30M. And here's another one for the "smart baseball guys doing dumb stuff" file. This probably isn't crazy exorbitant, but the downsides are striking in particular because he signed with Oakland. Bob Melvin uses a series of platoons and positional rotations to split up at-bats and get the most offensive value he can from each position. A full-time DH with limited power potential and a declining offensive profile simply doesn't have a place on this team. That's the Oakland-specific downside. The more general one is that Butler's days as a useful player might already be over. Let's also give a loss to Royals GM Dayton Moore, who could have gotten some value simply by exercising Butler's 2015 option and trading him for whatever was offered.

11/23: Pirates trade 1B Ike Davis to the Athletics for an international bonus pool slot. The full story of the A's offseason is incomplete, but so far it seems a mess. At this moment, Davis and the aforementioned Butler are going to take the lion's share of 1B/DH at bats, Brandon Moss is the everyday left fielder, and the middle infield is disgraceful. Rather than speculate on Billy Beane's endgame, I'll just evaluate the Davis acquisition on its own merits, say meh, and move on.

11/25: White Sox sign 1B Adam LaRoche, 2 years, $25M. I'm not crazy about the fit here: both LaRoche and Jose Abreu are justifiably going to want to play first, and one of them is going to be forced into a primary DH role. There's nothing wrong with the years or the money; it's right in line with what LaRoche is going to be worth assuming he doesn't decline immediately. I guess I'm obsessing a little on the small chance that messing with Abreu's role on the team could have a negative impact on his production, which (along with Chris Sale's continued health) is the biggest factor in returning the Palehose to contention. The odds are good that LaRoche turns out to be the perfect two in a one-two punch with Abreu. There's every reason to be optimistic that the Sox' offense, led by those two and complimented by Alexei, Avi, and Eaton, turns out to be a real threat. But as much as my brain says that my team just added a left handed bat with middle-of-the-order pop and checked off the number one item on their shopping list, I just don't feel that awesome about it.

11/25: Red Sox sign IF Hanley Ramirez, 4 years, $88M with a vesting option for a fifth year. Like Oakland's roster shuffle, this is another deal that requires a full offseason's worth of perspective to evaluate properly, but let's try anyway. Most importantly, Hanley is a monster at the plate, and moving from Dodger Stadium to Fenway won't hurt. He'll play next year at 31, so while the Red Sox are paying for at least a little of his decline, he's got a shot at outperforming his contract and giving the Sox at least one MVP-caliber year. So in terms of context-independent value, Boston did great and I'll declare them the winner. The thing is, context is everything. Ramirez should have been moved off short years ago (remember the Marlins tried it and he pouted/tanked his way into a trade?), but the Dodgers sucked up the bad defense because his bat more than made up for it. So where do you play him? The next entry in this post will claim the obvious option of third base, and with Pedroia and Bogaerts on board, the middle infield is spoken for. Ortiz has DH locked up. Napoli's at first. That leaves the outfield, where the Red Sox have seven Major League-quality guys jockeying for three spots even before you add Ramirez to the mix. If one could field two lineups instead of a lineup and a pitching staff and play baseball that way, this would be a great team. Instead, I think Red Sox fans have a few pennies-on-the-dollar trades of guys like Yoenis Cespedes, Shane Victorino, Daniel Nava, or possibly Mike Napoli to look forward to. Or maybe they carry the extra outfielder, decide Bogaerts needs more time in the minors, and let Hanley do what he calls "playing shortstop" for a season. Look, there's enough talent here to make the 2015 Red Sox sort of a modern version of the 90's Indians, where they score so many runs that the Joe Kellys of the world are good enough to win games. But the transformation from basement dwellers back to World Series champs is only half complete, and right now, it looks kinda ugly.

11/25: Red Sox sign 3B Pablo Sandoval, 5 years, $95M. As the Sandoval signing and the Ramirez signing are inextricably linked, a lot of what I said above applies here. The major differences are that Sandoval has a position (though he's closer to the worst than the best defensive third baseman) and Sandoval isn't worth his contract. I initially thought the move from San Francisco to Boston would boost his numbers, but the Panda has actually had much more success at home than on the road in his career. You would think Boston is getting the second half of Sandoval's prime, but given his body type it's hard to imagine him aging well. For the $19M annual investment to work out, Boston is going to have to get the Good Panda of 2009 and 2011 (a borderline MVP candidate) and not the Mediocre Panda of the past three years, who is little more than a league-average player. Doesn't strike me as the kind of guy you want to bring into an already crowded roster situation, but hey. Panda got paid.

Winning the Winter 2014-15: Part 1

I still have some desire to finish off Black Box, but life got in the way for a couple months so it may not be worth it. In its place, I've decided to try and keep pace with baseball news this winter instead of burning through weeks of old transactions sometime in January. Same rules as last winter: every transaction has a winner, because this is America, consarnit. I get my info from MLBTradeRumors.com and Baseball-Reference.com. I get my opinions from spending 16 years and counting as a baseball nerd. Let's get to work.

10/30/14: Red Sox resign RP Koji Uehara, 2 years, $18M. Uehara will pitch next season at age 40, and 2014 was arguably his worst year since his rookie season as a starting pitcher in Baltimore. Regression has already started, but to be fair, he's still got a long way to fall before he's no longer a valuable relief arm. Taking that into account, along with the contracts fellow elite relievers David Robertson and Andrew Miller will likely command, this looks OK. Still, I'm going to guess that the wheels come off in 2015 and this is a waste of money. Bartolo Colon is the only pitcher who gets to pitch well into his 40's anymore, and that's because Bartolo Colon has transcended his physical self.

11/3/14: Brewers and 3B Aramis Ramirez exercise mutual option, 1 year, $14M. I'm noting this one for a few reasons. One, mutual options are never exercised, because it's never exactly fair to both sides. This time it was and I think that's cool. Two, it's hard for any good athlete to be underpraised in this culture, but I think Aramis just might be. He's quietly had a great career, from his early days as an all-or-nothing slugger for the Pirates, to learning to hit and ending the Cubs' third baseman drought in 2003, to carving out a respectable third act in Milwaukee. When they open the Hall of Very Good, Ramirez will be a first-ballot entry. Good on the Brewers; I suspect Aramis could have gotten multiple years at that pay grade if he'd gone on the open market.

11/10/14: Mets sign OF Michael Cuddyer, 2 years, $21M. When new Rockies GM Jeff Bridich gave Cuddyer a qualifying offer, it was roundly mocked on the internet. You don't really have space on the roster for him, you don't have space in the budget to pay him $15M, he's a 35 year old outfielder who only played 49 games for you in 2014 and missed close to half the games during his latest 3 year deal. All true. What the internet didn't take into account is that in baseball, there is no bad decision that can't turn out well if some other team can out-blunder you. Enter Sandy Alderson, Mets GM. He gave that same player a two-year deal to ply his trade in a pitcher-friendly home park, where his defense-as-performance-art will be on display in another spacious outfield, and gave up his first round draft pick in 2015 for the privilege. To be fair, Cuddyer mashed when healthy in Colorado, but it isn't reasonable to expect both health and production from him in New York. So what were the consequences of Bridich's decision, one that could have gone south oh so easily? A free supplemental draft pick and a roster with one less logjam. This may be the only time anyone can say this for the next twelve months, so I'm gonna make it count: Theeeeeeeeeee ROCKIES WIN!

11/12/14: Pirates trade RP Justin Wilson to Yankees for C Francisco Cervelli. When I saw this, my first reaction was "Well, I guess the Pirates are out on Russell Martin." That was quickly confirmed. Since the Pirates can turn just about anybody into a useful relief pitcher, and this gives them a chance to get some plus offensive production from the catcher spot without completely tying up their payroll in two players, I like this for Pittsburgh. I don't hate it from the Yankees' perspective either, as they acquired a pre-arb reliever with some bat-missing skills, but I don't think Cervellis grow on trees.

11/14/14: Pirates sign SP A.J. Burnett, 1 year, $8.5M. Around this time last year, I ripped the Pirates for letting A.J. walk and signing Edinson Volquez as his replacement. So of course Volquez pitched to a 3 ERA and made all his starts. The lesson here: anyone who tries to predict anything has already lost the greater challenge of accepting the all-encompassing ignorance that is our nature as human beings. That aside, Burnett gave up more than $4M by declining his option with the Phillies and signing in Pittsburgh. I think that sums up the state of the two franchises at the moment. There's nothing not to like about this deal for either side. Burnett gets to pitch for Ray Searage again, and the Pirates get a little bit of badly needed rotation depth. There's more work to be done on that front, but this signing is a perfect place to start.

11/14/14: Tigers resign DH Victor Martinez, 4 years, $68M. Martinez finished second in the MVP vote to Mike Trout in 2014, so Dave Dombrowski made keeping him a priority over keeping ace Max Scherzer. That's fine, as long as you like late-30's sluggers who can't play defense, and enjoy paying them based on what they've already done and not what they will do. I'm resisting the urge to make an Xzibit joke here about what Dave Dombrowski and Mike Ilitch like and how they might like having more of what they like. Martinez is the early leader for the Dollar Sign Bag award, given annually to the player who most brazenly acquires wealth from a foolish team owner.

11/14/14: Rays trade SP Jeremy Hellickson to Diamondbacks for two prospects: IF Andrew Velasquez and OF Justin Williams. Hellickson wasn't THAT good when he won the Rookie of the Year award in 2011, and he's been consistently worse since then. With pitching's rise to dominance over the last five years, it would probably be a stretch to even call him league-average at this point. But hey, Tony LaRussa and Dave Stewart think he's a number 2 or 3. The two players the Rays got are already ranked in their top 10 prospects, which I think is a reflection more of the weakness of their minor league system than a drastic overpay by the D-Backs. Still, I think I'd take two lottery tickets over one year of Hellickson. Moderate edge to the Rays.

11/16/14: Braves trade IF Tommy La Stella and an international bonus slot to Cubs for SP Arodys Vizcaino and three international bonus slots. This one is a head-scratcher from the Cubs' perspective. They're overflowing with talented young middle infielders, so they trade for another one without the upside on offense. Vizcaino, meanwhile, struggled to get healthy after the Cubs acquired him from Atlanta in the Paul Maholm deal of 2012. Then you throw in the bonus slots, a net of over $800,000 going from Chicago to Atlanta that is likely the most valuable part of this trade. (To clarify, the Cubs are not sending cash. They are trading their right to spend that amount of money in the next international signing period to the Braves.) We've seen the Cubs mishandle these situations before, trading for extra slot money then blowing past their spending limit and incurring the penalties anyway. It's really anyone's guess what's going on here. Since the Braves acquired something of real and immediate value, you've got to like their end of the deal, but not as much as you've got to hate it for the Cubs.

11/17/14: Marlins sign RF Giancarlo Stanton to a 13 year, $325M extension. More internet ink has been wasted on this deal than any other, so I'll try to have a real take. Number one, asking baseball writers what they think of something Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria did is like asking a Republican what they think about something our president did. There's always a way to make anything fit the narrative of "Loria's a jerk and a con man," even giving out a record-setting contract to a player who deserves it. Nobody's talking about how the Marlins shut up all New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles writers who have spent years assuming Stanton was coming. Everyone is talking all about how backloaded the contract is, so they can make a half-assed attempt at contending before Stanton starts to make what he's worth and gets traded. The only way to counter that perception is to prove it wrong with factual events, so it's on Loria and his baseball ops team to take this three-year window of having an underpaid superstar and an ace pitcher making practically nothing, move decisively to add talent where it's needed (corner infield, another top starting pitcher, maybe some bullpen help), and turn the Marlins into a success on and off the field. This is not impossible. It's why Stanton- NOT Loria- asked to backload the deal, so Hill and Jennings have some financial breathing room. All it takes is for Loria to make the real investment in the team- not just Stanton, but a full roster- and then everyone can start treating the Marlins like a real baseball team. I've taken time every winter and every July to ask myself how the Marlins could do exactly that, because I happen to root for them. Now's the time to make it happen.

Terrible TV: Black Box, Episode 9

Well that was a fun month of not watching Black Box. I've still got about 1.5 gigs of the show on my hard drive though, and I can't fix that till we've dragged this old dog behind the shed and put it down. Let's do this.

We see three potential patients right off the bat. One is a Mexican Idol, Sofia Ortega, who comes down with a sudden case of tone deafness. At the same time, an old saxman playing on the streets of New York- Wade- gets hand tremors. Also, it's Frankie Faison, who probably should have saved his money from The Wire. He looks terrible. Then, a husband- Mark- storms out of a car while fighting with his wife over music and gets struck by lightning. Heehee. Maybe tonight's episode is about music. Gee, I wonder if Catherine's jazz man father will make an appearance.

Catherine and her new sub-intern Mackenzie are doing a music study- obv. Mackenzie rattles off the parts of the brain that respond to different elements of music, and Catherine gleefully reminds her that she's the Marco Polo of the brain and impossibly awesome stuff is what she does so DEAL WITH IT.

Dr. Mahmoud is in with Wade, who's sipping a pint of gin when she comes in. The Cube is a cool place when it comes to what they allow. Catherine pokes her head in, Mahmoud explains that his tremors are the result of his drinking, and Catherine knows better. Mahmoud deals with being improbably scooped, but then wants in on the music study. She proves she belongs by busting out a ridiculously amazing operatic singing voice. Because NO ONE ON THIS SHOW IS LESS THAN AWESOME AT ALL THINGS ALL THE TIME. Except human interaction. They all blow at that. Witness:

"It's official, we have zero in common. I'm tone deaf." -Catherine
"That's sad. No doubt the resulting envy was the subconscious motivation for your music study." -Mahmoud.

How about just "That was awesome. I'd love to have you in the study." "Thank you." Nope. Instead we get "Let's make this about me." "Ok. I hate you." because this show's version of banter is really just a manual for how to be an asshole. Catherine orders a test for Sofia, and Mackenzie reads off the first two paragraphs of said test's Wikipedia page. Why would a flailing show bring in a new character who says and does nothing entertaining? Just asking. She ends by beaming "I'm thinking tumor!" Yeah, she fits right in. Bickman describes Ali Wong as "an older, female you" when speaking to Leo, which isn't even close. Leo asks again for a letter of recommendation after his work in last week's episode, but no. Bickman says Leo's lack of hypermemory and lack of people skills make him a bad fit as a surgeon (Surgeons? People skills? Shrug.) but if Leo aces his next test, he'll reconsider. Then Catherine shows up in Bickman's office doing the sex kitten thing.

"Brace yourself I have feelings for you."

No comma inserted, because the line was delivered in a somewhat hilarious rushed deadpan. Still makes no sense. Bickman tells her that's cool, because they can have the feels and still not commit, and hell, why not bang both him and Will. Catherine's disgusted, because apparently it's fine to do it but it's not fine to say you're fine with doing it. She goes to see Esme, who's in the middle of a piano lesson... with Catherine's dad, Hunter. Reagan has gone from abominable ice monster to voice of reason as she encourages Catherine to go say hi. She doesn't. I've watched this show twice and I still missed the moment where Reagan stopped hating Catherine. I guess all positive plot developments happen off camera on this show. That's cool, this was the first and the last of those anyway.

Ali Wong shows off Sofia's scans, which show a worm in her brain. Ok, that's just fucking gross. One of The Cube's janitors, Babu, has a song stuck in his head and is hallucinating dancers to go along with it, so that gets him into the study. Mark is no longer tone deaf after the lightning strike. In fact, he loves music and is now a master violinist. I've heard of this before; it's called "Bad TV show does something stupid because nobody's going to notice" syndrome. Well, I noticed. They spend a few minutes re-explaining what happened in very tiny words, so even people who thought it was cool at first will understand it well enough to realize it's stupid. Hunter is waiting for Catherine in her office and they say horrible things to each other for a while. Hostage Redgrave gives Catherine a chance to be dumb some more: "I don't think people change." Also a bunch of contradictory I don't care/ I care nonsense.

Leo tries to fix Babu by replacing the Indian song with Yankee Doodle. It gets in Bickman's head as he takes out Sofia's worm. Then Bickman tells Wade that he needs brain surgery and they'll have to wake him up in the middle to see if it's working. Wade has a grudge against doctors, so he walks out. Catherine does another 180 and calls Hunter to try to talk Wade into getting the surgery. They were familiar with each other, as they were both amazing jazz superstars back in the day, and Hunter says he'll jam with him- as long as they do it in the OR. Yeah, that's a deal anyone would agree to. I mean, he's HUNTER BLACK. They patch the sound from the OR through The Cube. Mark starts jamming, Sofia starts singing runs, and the Yankee Doodles that replaced the Indian dancing girls leave Babu alone. Because jazz is the best medicine. It's exactly like that scene in The Simpsons where Lisa jams with Bleeding Gums Murphy in the hospital, except this time it's not supposed to be funny. Still is, though.

Catherine brings Will to Josh's for a family dinner with Hunter, and Will gives Esme a weekend job at his restaurant in his two minutes of screen time. A conveniently placed Hotel Mirabella pen and an offhand Esme comment makes Will realize Catherine slept with Bickman. His facial expression remains unchanged. Then Catherine goes outside and tries to hug a thunderstorm or something. The end. I swear, this eventually goes somewhere. I think. I dunno, I forget.

Terrible TV: Black Box, episode 8

I keep trying to do something different with this series: take my mood stabilizer and wait for it to kick in before I start watching. The hope is that the stupid will hurt less. The downside is that I lose the edge hypomania grants me, which Dr. Black has already taught us is the most important of all things. In a practical sense, it also means I make it ten minutes and then I fall asleep. So, here comes my third fourth attempt at episode 8, fueled by nothing but caffeine and nicotine.

So, did Catherine sleep with Bickman? Looks like we won't find out until after we meet the patient. Danny is a young-ish man who lives with his mom, right up until he shoots and kills her with a shotgun. Huh. Well, I have been asking for gun violence. I just wish it had involved our central characters. Then he sits down and journals about not being in control of his emotions. Catherine wakes up alone, remembering the previous night with Bickman. Hooray, more bad decisions blamed on mental illness! Then again... is this a bad decision? Will has no personality and nowhere near Bickman's frequently-mentioned-but-never-seen intellect. In addition, Will and Catherine's relationship isn't even dysfunctional. It's non-functional. Irreversible coma, breathing machine, please do everyone a favor and pull the plug already. So really, the worst part about this transgression is that it wasn't with Ali Wong. Or Bossman. I bet Bossman's oh-face is historically great.

Back at the apartment, Catherine lies to Will some more and Will tells the truth. With Will's total lack of affect and Catherine's overacting, this averages out to a well-executed scene. Leo comes back to work, but his hypermemory isn't back. The first patient we see at The Cube is Gordon, who his fiancé Stacy introduces as "The nicest man on the planet. That's why this is so crazy. I mean, he's a vegetarian, and gluten-free, for God's sake... The man laminates his library card."

What the hell is with these people talking about gluten? Gordon robbed the bank he worked at. I would guess he's not the first non-gluten eater to do so, seeing as how the two have nothing to do with each other. He has no control or awareness of what his left hand is doing. Catherine goes to Bickman to "clear the air", but really that just means "be passive-aggressive even though I actually like you". Once again, bitchiness and bipolar are not the same thing. Both exist, both are problems, but they don't have a causal relationship.

"I don't know what's going on here." -Catherine
"Me neither. Isn't that nice?" -Bickman

No sir it is not. It's permanent nails-on-a-chalkboard because the people writing your words and actions are horrible at their job. There is nothing nice about that.

Here's why Danny isn't at The Cube yet: he's decided to try to get a walk-in with Hostage Redgrave. He found out about her from reading a magazine article of the "Ten Best Psychiatrists". Ugh. OK, first off, superlative achievement unlocked. Good job, Hostage Redgrave. Second off, while psychiatrists can in fact do therapy, they are MDs and are focused on diagnosis and medical treatment. The right person for Danny to see, but unless Hostage Redgrave is a master of both psychiatry and psychology (and since she's a character on Black Box, it's a foregone conclusion that she's both of those things and also a princess and an astronaut and a dragon ALL AT THE SAME TIME RAWR), Catherine would most likely see a psychologist for her navel-gazing sessions. You know, because the World's Finest Neurologist would have to have the World's Finest Therapy. This is all hilarious, because she tells Danny that she's not the kind of doctor he needs to see. I just facepalmed myself and my hand went through the back of my skull. He refuses to take no for an answer, and it looks like shit is about to get thick.

Catherine and Josh meet up to talk- sister drama is always more important than working for those blue-collar types- and she says she has to break up with Will. Um, yeah. Way ahead of you there, Dr. Black. This upsets Josh, and he says Will's good for her. Josh figures out that she's cheating on him, and Catherine lies some more.

"People spend years in therapy trying to figure out what they want. No one can tell you. The answer is in your actions." -Josh

Damn, Josh. Why are you smarter than all the characters who went to school 12 years longer than you did? Also, why don't you treat everyone around you like shit? You're an anomaly in the Black Boxiverse, and while I like you, I don't like that. I'd be much more comfortable if you cooked meth and beat your family in your spare time instead of displaying a reasonable temperament and admirable morality.

Delilah comes back to the restaurant to apologize to Will. Will reads his lines directly off the script in a flat monotone. He accuses Delilah of trying to manipulate him. No dude, she really just wants your dick. There's no guile or deception here. The purpose of the Delilah character is to want into Will's pants. That's it. She says she and Will both have the same problem: they both love someone who won't love them back.

Let's go back to The Cube, where stuff makes just as much nonsense. Leo is surprised and hurt that Bickman can't write him a letter of recommendation, despite the fact that he and Allie had a conversation no more than a month ago where they acknowledged that missing even a day- let alone multiple weeks to recover from brain surgery- means you fail at your rotation.

Hostage Redgrave's facial expression finally makes sense, as she Googles Danny and finds out what he's done. She tries to call him an ambulance and he smashes the phone, right before having a psychotic break and running away.

Catherine prescribes Botox to Gordon to block the nerve impulses to his rogue limb.

"I'm a firm believer in self-control..." -Catherine.

Yup. Redgrave calls to tell her a crazed gunman might be headed for The Cube, and all I can say is it's about time. Danny slips by security, stakes out a spot on the roof, and busts out the sniper rifle. Aww, yeah. It's real-life GTA time. He almost kills himself, but the voices in his head change their mind and he gets ready to open fire on the lunch truck. Leo and Allie are in his sights, but since he can't hear their self-absorbed ramblings, he lets them live. As soon as the shots ring out, we find out Bickman is still at the food truck. He's shot in the neck but the bullet missed all major systems. So close. Danny starts seizing when the cops show up on the roof. Catherine, in a panic, tries to backseat drive Bickman's surgery. When he's out, she shows up offering to change his bandages. What? She wakes him up and he's all about getting back into surgery. Can you see where this is going? As if on cue, we find out Danny has a brain tumor that's causing all this nonsense.

"He doesn't look like a killer." -Ali Wong
"What does a killer look like?" -Catherine
"Good point." -Ali Wong

While Danny is being taken to surgery, a doctor says that it won't be a tragedy if he dies, because of this thing called free will. Catherine puts on her strident face and burns that strawman down. I think she just leveled up in the skill of Vociferously Defending the Obvious. And surprise, guess who's operating on Danny. It's Bickman! Oh snap! Doctor operates on the guy who shot him! Such noble. Many honor. Since everyone else is busy, Leo gets to assist and be scrub nurse. Bickman gets the tumor but nicks a blood vessel, then bows out due to pain, so Leo fixes it. Yay! A surgery winner is you.

Will calls Catherine and they have another conversation that makes you wonder what exactly makes them a couple. While toying with a pen at Catherine's place, he realizes it's from the Hotel Mirabella- the very hotel where Bickman lives. Dun dun dunnnn. Leo finds out Ali Wong lives in The Cube and is agoraphobic, and she threatens him with his radiology rotation to keep her secret. When Catherine goes to see Danny, Bickman's already there. Danny's memory is gone, so he's going to prison and doesn't know why.

"Life's fragile, huh?" -Catherine
"Yeah, believe me. I got the message." -Bickman

Between the bomb scare and the shooter, the show's pretty much out of ratings grab hospital show tropes with five episodes to go. How will they limp to the finish line? You can watch it for yourself (bad idea) or you can check in here for Episode 9 (good idea!).

Got All Them Buckets Coming Outta My Ears

Before we get back to defiling the grave of Black Box, I have something good to throw out into the aether. This is the sort of thing most people would retweet or like on Facebook, but this is my only internet presence so it's going here. As anyone who read my posts from 2012 probably could surmise, I lost my sister to ALS in early 2013. ALS sucks and I am completely in favor of discontinuing its existence. I'm not sure how pouring cold water over ourselves gets that done, exactly, but awareness is a good thing. I'd like to thank my friend Ted for jumping on this bandwagon. It gives me some evidence that not all viral phenomena exist to make us dumber and worse people. Good work and thanks, Ted.

(Unfortunately, Blogger's YouTube button apparently refuses to allow me to find and add any videos that don't involve famous people, or aren't about UFOs. So go here and watch it.)

Terrible TV: Black Box, Episode 7

It's been an amazing week of Magic: the Gathering for The Everlasting Dave. Orzhov midrange took me to a 4th place and 2nd place finish at two Game Day tournaments this Saturday, and on Sunday I took it all the way to the title. Ugly-as-sin playmat that I will still use because it says "Champion", ten packs, a foil promo I cashed in for five more packs, and the Nissa Pop Magic figurine I was destined to own. This is all to say I haven't given up on Terrible Television, just that sometimes there are more important things. Like card games. Card games I'm at least kind of good at. But we're back tonight to push past the halfway point of Black Box, just days after its cancellation was announced by ABC. Who's excited? I'm excited.

Episode 7 kicks off with models in sparkly, shimmery, hyper-glam, brightly colored makeup- another modest highlight in a show that desperately needs one. The makeup artist, Frankie, collapses and is our patient this time. Esme and Reagan are at Catherine's place while Josh is at the Knicks game. Catherine mentions she could have gotten him floor seats, cause you know, Mary Sues can do absogoddamnlutely anything their writers want them to do. Little known trivia about Catherine Black: she can breathe underwater, once crab-walked a marathon in under 4 hours, farts a cancer-curing substance that smells like ambrosia, and only dates men who ride white horses and whose armor is stained with the blood of the wicked. All true. Reagan is inexplicably nice all of a sudden, helping to plan Will and Catherine's wedding. Will previews his dance moves again and casually mentions he's about to introduce Catherine to his family. Catherine takes the opportunity to insist repeatedly on Hunter not being invited to the wedding, in the face of passionate opposition from nobody.

Everybody at The Cube is watching the news about refugees in Syria, and Bossman helpfully mentions "The administration does not need another Benghazi." See, doctors are just like us- total fucking morons. Then the models show up with Frankie, and every man in The Cube turns into a babbling waste of oxygen. Oh, wait. The presence of models changed nothing. Catherine examines Frankie, who's suffered a stroke and has had personality changes.

"The color has gone out of my life." -Frankie

OK, spoilee time, because I remember this episode. Frankie's stroke caused colorblindness. Let's get through the final 37 minutes and try to forget the clumsiest foreshadowing in history. Will uses big words to explain to his sous chef that he (Will) has a hyper-developed sense of smell. Again, everyone in the Black Boxiverse has to be the most something of everything. I don't know the people who created and wrote this show but I am absolutely convinced they all have borderline personality disorder. All this mostest and best-ever stuff was tiresome halfway through the first episode, but they keep cramming superlatives into every crevice- and the show is like 90% crevice. Delilah shows up just to be the object of Will's cold rejection.

"Back off please? Your perfume's getting all up in my olfactory holes." -Will

Bickman and Bossman both show up in the imaging lab to awkwardly ask the smug, judgey lady docs if there's any information they can relay to Frankie's model friends. The boys stammer and stutter while deciding who gets to tell the models, and Catherine smirks that they can each deliver a piece of information. Best. Doctor. Ever. In the very next scene, Catherine takes one of Bickman's moves while he and Bossman are playing chess. OK, so maybe the misogyny of the last episode has faded, but its opposite is no less damaging if a goal of our life experience is to become enlightened and good human beings. This show's take on gender dynamics would resonate best with unsupervised third graders at recess. Yes, I'm overthinking it, and yes, that is still the only way this is enjoyable for me.

Anyway, a photographer from the Syria story caught a piece of shrapnel and Bickman is the only neurosurgeon in the whole wide world allowed to operate on her. Of course he is. In the excitement, Bossman tells Catherine that Frankie can't be fixed and she needs to let it go. Uh oh. Did he... Did he just tell The Marco Polo Of The Brain that something can't be done? Damn, Bossman. Your sweater-vests, bow ties, and round glasses belie your livin'-on-the-edge style. Hostage Redgrave makes an appearance just so Catherine can re-establish that she never gives up. The scene ends with Hostage Redgrave shaking her head with an impressed, bordering on awed, smile on her face. Redgrave calls back immediately after the session with a brilliant, groundbreaking way to fix Frankie. Ali Wong has a "synesthesia machine" lying around that translates sound into color, and she reverse engineers it so Frankie can hear color. Because that's a thing that happens. Frankie is not enthused but takes the equipment home with him anyway.

Here's where the people making this show abandon all hope of being original, thought provoking, and in any way significant in the never-ending battle against ignorance that us mentally ill folk try to fight every day. Turns out the photographer has a live round of ammunition lodged in her skull and Catherine is the only one who sees it on the scan. This is a very compelling storyline, and I know because Grey's Anatomy did it eight years ago. Black Box plagiarizes everything about it, right down to the self-destructive female protagonist who refuses to leave the OR at grave risk to herself. The difference is, in Black Box, the extremely sensitive live ordinance has already survived flights from Syria to Germany to New York without giving the photographer a real-life case of the head explodies. Planes don't jostle, right? Also, in Black Box, Bickman gets the shell out and nobody dies. Because Magical Christmas Land.

What better way to celebrate an unrealistic surgery than meeting your fiancée's super-traditional and stereotypical parents? Mama Will collects snow-globes and Stepdaddy Will kind of reminds me of Tio Salamanca from Breaking Bad. In rapid-fire-nails-on-a-chalkboard style, we find out that Mama Will is under the impression that after the wedding, Catherine will give up that silly world's greatest neurologist thing, squirt out a few puppies, and be Will's housewife. I'm not sure if this is more offensive to women or black people. All I know is I'm offended and that takes a lot. Catherine takes a call from Bickman, and Will gets a sext from Delilah. All the while, Mama Will grills Catherine about how devoted she really is to Will and his happiness. Catherine retreats to the living room, watches Leave it to Beaver with Stepdaddy Will, and hallucinates herself as June Cleaver. It's just surreal enough to be sexy when she starts repeating "My husband is quite a catch. He is the sun, and the moon, and the stars." over and over, with increasing levels of distress, until she finally chugs a bottle of vanilla extract. But then again, the things I find sexy are varied and inexplicable. I think this is supposed to be a scary descent-into-madness scene. On the ride home, more lessons on how not to be a couple by the experts:

"Don't forget, you're dropping me off at The Cube." -C
"(Passive aggressive yep)... You had a horrible time tonight." -W
"I didn't."
"You were distracted and disinterested. You must've walked off five times to take phone calls and texts."
"I'm not the only one who took texts during dinner."

Catherine goes back to work, and Will goes back to the restaurant, where he finds Delilah sitting on the bar wearing lingerie. OK, maybe not all the things I find sexy are inexplicable. That shoots up to #1 on the list of greatest Black Box moments. Will's inability to act is on full display as he shuts her down yet again. Frankie sends Catherine a goofy video showing he's using and enjoying the synesthesia machine, because some viewers may have forgotten that Catherine is always right. She goes to the roof to find Bickman.

"(Will's family) is the most kind, lovely, adorable, close-knit family I never had." -Catherine

Haha. Nobody loves you or ever will, Catherine Black. Bickman reveals he lives in a hotel because the only thing he really cares about is being the most bestest brain surgeon there ever was, is, or will be. Catherine's turned on, and Bickman asks her to have a drink with him. It ends before she answers.

In retrospect, this episode was the best of the show's entire run. Sparkly makeup, black and red lingerie, and a hallucination based on "Leave it to Beaver" are the three things I'll remember about this series a year from now. I hope that was the producers' intent.